Silver and Red
by EleanorGardner
Summary: After escaping imprisonment, Natasha is severely injured. But when a secret message reaches the team, the race is on find their missing teammate, and to help her find her own kind of strength before it's too late. Slight AU.
1. Red in the Night

**A/N: Anything recognizable belongs to Marvel. **

**Warning: Brief gore and mentions of torture. **

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Red covered her hand...

Beautiful, ruby red, sparkling in the light. A river, running back and forth on its way to the ground, glinting in the moonlight.

She watched it with detached interest, admiring the deep crimson colour. In the back of her mind, she knew that this was not good, that she had to do something about it, but she did not have the energy. She had barely been able to drag herself to the roof in an attempt to escape, had used the last of her strength to fight off the final two men.

The torture had almost broken her, and she had been at the end of her endurance, when hope came in the form of one of the jagged pieces of metal that had been embedded in her side, the result of the explosion at the safe house. She had stealthily, soundlessly, _agonizingly_ dug her fingers into the wound during the brief periods of respite that came when the guards changed. Slowly, carefully she had opened the half-healed wounds, biting back moans and whimpers at the pain that cut through her side and pulsed through her bloodied fingertips. She had lost her last fingernail three days ago, and, no matter how many times she was injured, she always felt it, despite the training she had gone through in the Red Room. There, an admission of pain was an admission of failure, and failure resulted in immediate elimination.

Some girls had failed on purpose, unable to handle the daily beatings, fights, and mentally crushing training techniques employed by the teachers. They had chosen failure (_sweet respite_), and had been removed from the program. Others had just not been strong enough. Not so the Widow. Thought she, too, wished at times to be free from the constant pain and deadly competition, she had forced herself to ignore that option. It was no option, really. There never was an option for those other girls. Their path had lead to death, from the day that the Widow had put on a mask of indifference and promised herself to survive.

It was that determination to live that had kept her going in these last few weeks.

Now, with her life bleeding out of her, her thoughts turned to the one who had saved her, redeemed her, given her a second chance. The one who had asked the world to believe that she was still human. He had met her at her darkest, bloodiest hour, and had brought her back to the light.

She smiled wryly. Clint would be so disappointed in her. The infamous Black Widow, taken down on the doorstep of rescue.

Trembling with weakness, and with her eyes shut against the pain that was sweeping over her in agonizing waves, her blood-stained fingers reached for her necklace, caressing the tiny silver arrow. They had removed her Widow Bites when she had been captured, but they had not taken this, her most precious possession.

It had been a gift from Clint, given to her a year after he had made a different call, after he had given her a second chance at life.

She had received it without emotion that day, had thanked him and walked away, feeling utterly unworthy of anything so beautiful, so pure. But later in her room, she had taken it from its box and clasped it around her neck, admiring the delicate workmanship, and feeling grateful (oh, so grateful) for all he had done for her.

It had always been in its place around her neck after that, except for one time when the chain had broken during training. The next day Clint had noticed its absence from its usual place, and had offered to have it fixed for her. He had brought it back, whole, two weeks later, with a grin on his face as he handed her the little box.

_"I shall always be there to rescue you,"_ he had said in a dramatic voice, light shining in his eyes.

_"In fact, if your blood is spilled on this arrow, I shall come, my lady, and I shall rescue you from the clutches of the dragon!"_

Sweeping his hat off, he had bowed at the waist, glancing up at her and grinning even wider when he saw her feeble attempts to hide a smile at his antics.

A hint of tears glimmered in her eyes as she remembered this now. He had always enjoyed being funny in an attempt to make the team laugh, though his forte was in witty sarcasm.

But she would never see him again.

She would bleed out on this roof, and he would never know what had happened to her. Or maybe he would eventually find her body and take her back to the Compound, where she would be buried beneath the flowers, those innocent blossoms growing above her a stark contrast to the black and red that had filled her life.

Blood smeared the silver fletchings as she grasped the necklace in her hand, holding on the her last bit of hope, her last bit of comfort. If only she could have dodged those final bullets as she had run from her captors. But the pain had made her slow, and now she was paying for all the blood that she had spilled during her life.

Paying with each drop of blood that left her body, the crimson liquid splashing on the concrete and creating a startling mural of repentance.

She felt her hands grow cold, then weak, and her grip on the necklace gradually loosened, till she lost her hold on it completely as darkness washed over her, and all pain left her.

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A little red light glowed faintly.

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A signal reached out through the darkness.

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**I have four more chapters of varying lengths written, and will post them over the next few days. **

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	2. Silver's Call

He had been searching for so long, had finally lost hope of ever seeing her again.

And now this.

Woken in the middle of the night by a phone call, Coulson had given him the last news he had expected.

_"The necklace has been activated."_

Speechless at the news, he sat there gaping, mouth moving soundlessly in an attempt to find something to say.

_"Barton? I have notified Stark. We will be at your place with a quinjet in ten. Be ready."_

When he had not gotten a signal from it after the weeks he had searched, he thought they had taken it away, perhaps ripped it from her neck in a sadistic display of unnecessary cruelty, and dropped it in some random dumpster.

He scrambled from the bed, apologizing to his sleepy wife as he struggled noisily into his suit, grabbed his bow and arrows, and ran to the yard, where he waited impatiently for the quinjet to arrive. It had appeared in five minutes, but those five minutes felt like five eternities.

Now in the air, he tapped his foot nervously, gruesome and terrible images of Nat's possible fate filling his head. Not even when his wife had been in labour the first time had he felt so anxious.

Finally, they reached the source of the signal. It was coming from the roof of an abandoned mansion surrounded by neglected fields and dense forests, the only path to which was an old dirt road. Landing the quinjet in the grass by the front entrance, the pilot opened the doors, and the rescue team hurried quickly and carefully out into the moonlight.

They split up silently to sweep the building first, but Clint ran in with little thought for his own safety, his only goal to reach Nat in time. Grasping the tracker tightly in his hand, he followed the signal up many flights of stairs, stepping over the occasional body with the marks of Nat's signature moves still on its skin, till at last he reached the roof. Sweeping his gaze across the flat expanse, he caught sight of a crumpled form in the far corner, propped up and partially hidden by an air vent, and his heart nearly stopped.

He was too late.

She didn't move as he ran up to her, didn't give any indication that she felt him kneeling beside her, grasping her hand in his. A hand that was stained with blood, coloured the same shade as her hair. He called to her, but she did not open her eyes, didn't so much as twitch in response. Hopelessly, he held his fingers to her neck, searching for a pulse that he was sure was not there.

And yet, impossibly, inexplicably, it was.

It was faint, a mere flutter, but it was there.

Hope flaring, he stumbled backwards, hands fumbling to activate his radio, the words rasping out in a shocked rush.

_"I found her! I repeat, I found her! On the north-west corner of the roof, on the left side of the building. Bring the med team up, she needs help! Hurry!"_

The radio crackled as Coulson and the medical team responded, but he was not listening anymore. All his attention was on the woman before him, her life slowly draining away. He tore off his jacket and placed it over her in an attempt to keep her warm, while his hands pressed on the wounds in her torso, stemming the flow of blood and keeping the life inside her.

He barely notice when the med team arrived, so intense was his focus on keeping her alive. Gentle hands finally drew him away as dark figures swarmed her body, replacing him in the battle to bring her back safely.

He stood watching, hands clenched, heart racing, as they worked over her and finally got her stable enough to move. He had never thought things could get this bad, had never thought that this could ever happen to one of the Avengers.

As they flew back to the compound, they lost her twice, but each time they brought her back. It was during those times that he realized how strong, yet how fragile she really was. She had always kept a mask of strength and detachment over her true thoughts and feelings, and had never let herself show too much of who she really was to the world. Rare was the time when she had opened herself up to the team, and each time he had longed for her to always be like that.

Perhaps this time, after all she had been through...

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**Hey everyone! Hope you all enjoyed this next chapter!**

**Also, thanks so much to all of you who followed, favourited, or reviewed. Your support means a lot to me! **


	3. Interlude

Darkness...

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Darkness cocooned her, kept her from pain...

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The darkness swirled, lifting, then settling, then lifting once more...

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Finally, as though through a heavy fog, she heard voices.

Some of them sounded anxious and ragged, like the owner had not slept in days.

Some sounded soft and comforting, calm and reassuring in a way that the other voice had not been.

Another tried to sound upbeat and careless, speaking in a tone that sometimes lost its humorous touch, giving way to broken, apologetic-sounding murmurs.

The fog resettled...

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Gradually, she could see light though her eyelids, and wondered if this was heaven...

But no...

If this was heaven, she would not be feeling so much pain. Her side was throbbing, her chest ached, and her fingers were stiff with bandages.

She tried to lift her hand, but only succeeded in twitching the muscles in her arm. She had never been so weak before, so vulnerable. Had she been rescued?

Maybe this was a dream, maybe she had never escaped at all. It was what she deserved. Wasn't it? But then why did this feel so real?

She slipped back into darkness.


	4. Broken Mask

At long last, she drifted into awareness, buoyed along by the voice that murmured beside her. She opened her eyes and squinted blearily at the bright lights in the white ceiling above her. Moaning, she tried to turn her head away from the stabbing brightness, and the person beside her bed suddenly stopped speaking.

"Nat? Nat, can you hear me? Are you awake?"

Her only response was another moan, but the person beside her jumped up and pressed something beside her head, talking excitedly all the while. Soon several people rushed in and shooed the man out of the room, then began checking equipment and asking her questions in calm, quiet voices. She tried to follow their directions, but could only manage to squeeze the hand that was placed in hers. After a while, they left and the man returned, but she could tell from the sound of his voice that he was much happier than he had been before.

Over the course of several days, she gradually healed enough to move her arms, then to sit up. Agony still pierced her side when she moved too much, and her head swam if she sat up too quickly. Bandages covered great swaths of her skin, hiding the evidence of the wounds she had sustained from both the explosion and the torture afterward.

She could tell that the team had been worried about her. Clint, Bruce, and even Stark, surprisingly, were visibly careful around her, going to great lengths to ensure her comfort. They all came and sat with her at different times, talking about all sorts of things. Bruce talked about various science projects in that quiet way yet excited way he had, while Stark asked for her opinion on some upgrades he had been thinking about for her Black Widow suit. Clint spent long hours talking about the farm, telling her about the latest missions, talking about Lila and Cooper's latest escapades. Anything and everything was discussed in that little room in the medbay.

It was during one of these times that she interrupted Clint. He had been in the middle of telling her how Lila had sneaked his spare bow and arrows out to the yard, and had been on the verge of blowing a very large crater in the ground by the barn before he caught her.

"Poor girl, I don't think she knew how dangerous—"

"Clint."

"Yeah, Nat?"

"How did you know where I was? How.. how did you find me?" she rasped.

"We got a signal from your tracker," he said softly.

"But they took all my gear away, even my Bites. They... they had some sort of tranq dart, and I... I couldn't stop them," she whispered in shame.

"I tried, but I just... I couldn't... There were too many..."

"Nat, I don't blame you for getting captured. It wasn't your fault. You were injured, and even the best of us can be overcome."

"I know, but.. but how did you find me? I thought I would die there."

"I got one of Coulson's team to put a tracker in your necklace when I got it fixed. I thought that it would be important for you to have one that even you didn't know about, so that way no one else would be able to find out it was there."

"Clint," was all she could say as a lump filled her throat.

"That Fitz kid did a stunning job. It would only activate if your blood touched it, and your blood only. That way, if you were ever unable to call for help, it would do the calling for you."

"I... I didn't know," she said, eyes filling with tears. "Thank you... thank you so much. I thought I would die there, alone on that roof. I thought that you would never know what had happened to me."

Her voice dropped to a whisper, the words barely audible. "Never know that I had failed, that I was too weak to save myself."

"Well," he said softly, "you're here now. Safe. And Nat, it takes a certain type of strength to do what you did. Man, it takes a certain type of strength to _be_ you, to have lived what you lived."

Taking her hand, he squeezed it in reassurance. "Never let yourself think that you are weak. You are the strongest person I know."

"Stronger than Steve?" She smiled through her tears.

"Stronger than Bruce when he's angry," he chuckled. "But don't tell him I said that."

"Wouldn't dream of it."

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**My idea of Nat's necklace being a blood/DNA activated GPS beacon was inspired by the blood activated gadgets used by livvylane in her story "A Different Kind of Rescue". **

**Thank you for reading! Leave a review if you enjoyed! It really makes my day to hear everyone's feedback.  
**


	5. Strength Reborn

And so Natasha healed, growing stronger every day. She regained her physical strength, and her bond with her teammates strengthened as well. As she opened her heart to them, the ocean of darkness and pain from the things she had endured during her life gradually drained out of her, and the walls she had built around her heart slowly crumbled.

Replacing them was a broken, patched, fragile thing, that, despite its appearance, was _real_, and in its reality, it was the strongest thing on Earth. Every mask she had put on before, in both her years with S.H.I.E.L.D. and those as an assassin, had eventually crumbled beneath the weight of reality. This new, beautiful thing was who she really was, and she was not ashamed of it.

For it was real, real as the necklace at her throat and the life that pulsed beneath it, and she would never hide it again.

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**I want to thank everyone who has read, reviewed, or favourited this story. Your support, whether through reviewing or through reading, means a lot to me! **


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